Mr. Smith, in sending a copy of the above letter to Mr. Prime, thus explains the reference to Mr. Chamberlain:—­

“The allusion made in the letter just given to the fate of Mr. Chamberlain, was another depressing disappointment which occurred to the Professor contemporaneously with those of the Russian contract.  Before I left Paris we had closed a contract with Mr. Chamberlain to carry the telegraph to Austria, Prussia, the principal cities of Greece and of Egypt, and put it upon exhibition with a view to its utilization there.  He was an American gentleman (from Vermont, I think) of large wealth, of eminent business capacities, of pleasing personal address and sustaining a character for strict integrity.  He parted with Professor Morse in Paris to enter upon his expedition, with high expectations of both pleasure and profit, shortly after my own departure from Paris in October, 1838.  He had subsequently apprised Professor Morse of very interesting exhibitions of the telegraph which he had made, and under date of Athens, January 5, 1839, wrote as follows:  ’We exhibited your telegraph to the learned of Florence, much to their gratification.  Yesterday evening the King and Queen of Greece were highly delighted with its performance.  We have shown it also to the principal inhabitants of Athens, by all of whom it was much admired.  Fame is all you will get for it in these poor countries.  We think of starting in a few days for Alexandria, and hope to get something worth having from Mehemet Ali.  It is, however, doubtful.  Nations appear as poor as individuals, and as unwilling to risk their money upon such matters.  I hope the French will avail themselves of the benefits you offer them.  It is truly strange that it is not grasped at with more avidity.  If I can do anything in Egypt, I will try Turkey and St. Petersburg.’”

Morse himself writes:  “In another letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Mr. Levering, dated Syra, January 9, he says:  ’The pretty little Queen of Greece was delighted with Morse’s telegraph.  The string which carried the cannon-ball used for a weight broke, and came near falling on Her Majesty’s toes, but happily missed, and we, perhaps, escaped a prison.  My best respects to Mr. Morse, and say I shall ask Mehemet Ali for a purse, a beauty from his seraglio, and something else.’” And Morse concludes:  “I will add that, if he will bring me the purse just now, I can dispense with the beauty and the something else.”

Tragedy too often treads on the heels of comedy, and it is sad to have to relate that Mr. Chamberlain and six other gentlemen were drowned while on an excursion of pleasure on the Danube in July of 1839.

That all these disappointments, added to the necessity for making money in some way for his bare subsistence, should have weighed on the inventor’s spirits, is hardly to be wondered at; the wonder is rather that he did not sink under his manifold trials.  Far from this, however, he only touches on his needs in the following letter to Alfred Vail, written on November 14, 1839:—­